

If my parents had told me about La Llorona, I wouldn’t have been so worried about a stuffed bear. She doesn’t just get you, she takes you and drowns you in the nearest river.

According to my friend, he was warned as a child not to stay out after dark or La Llorona would come and get you (side note: my friend grew up in New Mexico and was very surprised that I spent six years there during college and had never heard of La Llorona). In Mexico, the boogeyman is known as La Llorona. Remind me to tell you later about that doll you’re holding? So, my parents showed me Poltergeist when I was seven and, fuck, is that a clown over there?! I may not have been afraid of the boogeyman, but after watching Poltergeist, every stuffed animal I owned was crammed in the closet for a month. I was as scared of the boogeyman as I was of the sandman because what kind of sick bastard sprinkles sand in kids’ eyes? I still got out of bed because I was five and the word boogeyman just didn’t sound all that scary. The boogeyman lived in the closet or under the bed and would get me if I got out of bed. My parents tried this, but their hearts weren’t really in it. Right now, you are thinking of the Boogeyman. On the flip side, some parents try to scare the shit out of their kids to get them to behave. But, I think we can all agree that Santa is a fun lie that probably will not scar your children, especially since you have no idea where you can purchase a single lump of coal to shove in their stockings. Be good and you will get the presents you ask for, but be bad and you get a lump of global warming.

Nick is mostly a harmless lie, unless you subscribe to evil versions of Santa like Krampus or Tim Allen. Right now, you are thinking of Santa Claus. As parents, we tell our kids all kinds of lies to get them to behave.
